About

CensusAtSchool NZ involves an online student’s survey for Years 5 through to 13.

Schools take part voluntarily, with students completing the survey during lesson time, then submitting their data to contribute to an international database.

Some questions are in common with the other countries, to provide comparisons between countries, while tailoring the remainder of the questionnaire to reflect the interests of New Zealand children.

Results and sample data are made available to teachers once the ‘census’ is complete, with classroom resources released over time.

CensusAtSchool NZ aims to:

foster a positive attitude to statistics through using data that is both relevant and real

improve understanding of a data gathering process, its purposes and benefits to society

provide access to large and meaningful multivariate data sets

encourage effective IT teaching and learning

enhance the process of statistical enquiry across the curriculum

CensusAtSchool NZ joins an international educational project designed to enhance statistical literacy. It began in the UK, but was based on a trial project by Prof. Sharleen Forbes of Statistics New Zealand, which took place in 1990.

The Royal Statistical Society Centre for Statistical Education started the CensusAtSchool project in the UK in 2000 and it has since been joined by New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Japan, South Africa, USA and Korea.

The international project aims to:

provide real data for data-handling activities across the National Curriculum;

increase awareness of what a national census is, and what it is for;

show how Information and Communications Technology can be used effectively to enhance learning and teaching resources for good practice in data handling.